Chris Vrenna Talks Doom 3

Noted composer/musician discusses creating the theme song and ambient texturing in the game.

By Spence D.

Within the realms of video game music the name Chris Vrenna is spoken with a certain amount of reverence. But then that's to be expected considering his pedigree.

Vrenna rose to fame (and to a certain extent infamy) as one of the founding members of Nine Inch Nails. Since his departure from NIN, he's carved out a well-respected niche as a producer and remixer, working with a wide variety of top name talent ranging from U2 to P.O.D. and Xzibit. The man has also released two solo/group albums under the moniker Tweaker, the project drawing all manner of interesting collaborations from the likes of Will Oldham, David Slyvian, Robert Smith, and Johnny Marr.

But Vrenna hasn't just confined himself to the outer rim of modern pop music. He has also delved, quite successfully, into the world of video game composition, contributing incidental, background music to several games, crafting the entire&#Array;and rather creepily eccentric&#Array;score for American McGee's Alice, and most recently working on the theme song for Doom 3, as well as the scores to Area 51 and Tabula Rasa.

Given the impending August 3rd release for Doom 3, we caught up with Vrenna to discuss how he became involved on the project.

Spence D., Editor-in-Chief, IGN Music: To the best of my knowledge, your involvement with Doom 3 is basically that you and Clint Walsh wrote the theme song for the game, correct?

Chris Vrenna: Right and then I did some kind of&#Array;how am I going to explain it? I guess you would call it sound design music stuff for Doom 3 a little bit here and there. They're not having a traditional score throughout the game, so it was mostly little sound design snippets and stuff.

IGNM: Perhaps I'm not using the term correctly, but you mean like incidental music?

Chris Vrenna: Yeah, but it's not even that. They're just like little mini-loops or phrases, weird little things to be dropped in here and there. They didn't really want to go that traditional route. Last when I saw it there would be small, little musical things, more like little sound design snippets based more in musical stuff, but I wouldn't even call it full music, if that makes sense. It's pretty cool.

IGNM: Like detached themes?

Chris Vrenna: Yeah, just little things to help add to the overall ambiance. They didn't really want to do a lot of music music throughout the game. They kinda wanted to keep the game experience pretty pure sounding. Lots of ambient stuff, their idea being that when you're in these places or situations, you're not gonna hear techno playing. When you're there, you're just gonna hear whatever's there, you know. I tried to get away with as little as possible. At least, again, when I was working on it. During that portion of it, we did it at the beginning of this year. And then the theme we just did recently for them, 'cause they just wanted something for the intro and credits. So I'm kinda sittin' with anxious breathe waitin' to see the game myself!

IGNM: How did you get involved in the project? And then when you and Clint wrote the theme, did they actually show you game footage or did you both fly by the seat of your pants?

Chris Vrenna: When I was doing what I call the musical sound design stuff, I actually had one of their full development PCs here at my place for a little while. They sent it to me 'cause just the way you have to work and the way you lay sounds within the levels and things of that nature [required that I see and play the game]. So I got to play a lot of the game back when I was doing that. But when it came time for the theme, they just had some specific styles and sounds that they wanted. And to do that, because it wasn't going to be locked to anything, and since I'd already seen a lot of the game before, it wasn't as important to see the game in order to compose that piece of music. But man does that game look cool! It's definitely a good one. It's really, really scary.

IGNM: How did you get hooked up with the project?

CV: Well, way, way, way back when I was with 'Nails, you know, we worked on Quake. I know that Trent was involved with the project early on and then wasn't involved with it any more. I think they just called my agent and it was just one of those synchronistic sort of things.

IGNM: How actively do you pursue working on certain games? I mean does the work just fall into your lap or do you search out specific titles and let the developers know that you'd like to work on their score?

CV: That was kind of what was happening at first with me. But now as time goes on, if I hear of games I'm starting to now pursue stuff that sounds fun. I just really like making music for games. I find game music, in general, to be one of the most creative outlets right now for music. You get a lot of freedom and the people you work with&#Array;game developers and the producers&#Array;are just so cool. Unlike TV or film people, I just find game people to just be the coolest [laughs]. Not that TV and film people are uncool, it's just that game people are more like me, you know?

IGNM: That said, do you think composing music for games offers you more freedom than composing for either film or television?

CV: It kind of does. I mean it has its own set of rules, as well, that you always have to follow. You know, you still are working with a large group of people&#Array;producers, developers, and so forth&#Array;that you still have to answer to, you know things of that nature. It's just once you've learned their set of rules, yeah, it tends to be the most free.

Doom 3

Can a 22nd century marine save the Union Aerospace Corporation's Mars Research Facility from the forces of hell? Find out as the first-person shooter series DOOM continues in DOOM 3.